188 pages · 2022
Nursing Theory, Postmodernism, Post-structuralism, and Foucault
By Olga Petrovskaya
- Published
- September 30, 2022
- Imprint
- Routledge
- Edition
- 1st Edition
- ISBN
- 9781003194439
Overview
About this book
Nursing Theory, Postmodernism, Post-structuralism, and Foucault critiques mainstream American nursing theory and its use of post-structural theory, comparing and contrasting how postmodern and post-structural ideas have been used fruitfully in nursing research and theorizing elsewhere.
In the late 1980s, references to post-structuralism and Michel Foucault started to appear in nursing journals. Since then, hundreds of nursing publications have cited postmodernism and key post-structural ideas such as power/knowledge, discourse, and de-centring the human subject. In Nursing Theory, Postmodernism, Post-structuralism, and Foucault, Olga Petrovskaya argues that the application of these ideas is markedly different in American nursing theory scholarship compared to nursing theoretical scholarship generated outside the canon of "unique" nursing theory. Analysing relevant literature from the late 1980s through 2010s, she demonstrates this difference, arguing that American nursing theory calcified into a matrix of dogmas built on logical positivism, wary of "borrowed" theory, and loyal to a "unique nursing science." Post-structural ideas that fit the matrix, such as criticism of medicine, are sanctioned, whereas ideas sceptical of humanistic agendas including those that challenge American nursing theory are rendered meaningless. In contrast, other nurse scholars from Britain, Australia, Canada, and what the author calls the American enclave group engaged with postmodern and post-structural perspectives to enrich their research and invite readers to rethink nursing practice. The book showcases examples of their intelligent, creative theorizing. Arguing that American nursing theory enervated nursing theorizing, Petrovskaya calls for opening this matrix to theoretical and methodological creativity, less rigid categories of scholarship, and healthy self-examination.
Making the case that post-structural ideas are vital for nurses’ ability to critically reflect on their discipline and profession, this is a necessary read for all those interested in nursing theory, philosophy, and praxis.
Chapter 1 of this book is available for free in PDF format as Open Access from the individual product page at www.routledge.com. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
Subjects
Health and Social Care, Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing & Allied Health, Research Methods
Inside the book
Table of contents
Select a chapter to read its abstract.
Chapter 1Early 21st-Century Canadian Nursing at a Theoretical Crossroads
Pages: 19
This chapter sets the stage for the book’s argument by situating the author at the “theoretical crossroads” in the discipline of nursing in Canada in the early 21st century. The author describes her sense of puzzlement when she initially reflected on two jarringly different kinds of theorizing in nursing: American nursing theory and British-Australian postmodern/post-structural theorizing. Significantly, only the former scholarship, American nursing theory, was touted in the textbooks as “nursing knowledge” while highly relevant and interesting postmodern and post-structural nursing work remained at the margins. The chapter then provides background on how American nursing theory, with its foundation in logical positivism and self-definition as a unique nursing science, makes rigorous postmodern and post-structural theorizing invisible and unintelligible. The chapter concludes by providing details about the structure of the book.
Chapter 2Establishing the Field of Study
Pages: 18
This chapter establishes the field of study: postmodern, post-structural, and Foucauldian nursing scholarship. It offers a description of how the literature for the study was compiled and a general overview of that literature, giving readers a beginning sense of the postmodern and post-structural nursing field. Most significantly, this chapter signals that it is possible to make distinctions among American and non-American postmodern and post-structural nursing writings.
Chapter 3American Nursing Science and Discipline-Specific Theory
Pages: 20
This chapter draws on Mark Risjord’s 2010 argument to describe key philosophical ideas founding—in unrecognised but powerful ways—American nursing theory and “unique” nursing science. These ideas include the persistence of an outdated logical positivist model of science including the rejection of theory borrowed from other disciplines. These founding ideas have resulted in some of the best examples of nursing theorizing (including postmodern and post-structural theorizing) being unintelligible to the American nursing theory matrix.
Chapter 4Postmodern and Post-structural Ideas in American Nursing Texts I
Pages: 24
This chapter investigates how French theoretical currents of postmodern and post-structural theory were received into the discourse of unique American nursing science: postmodernism was reworked to fit and support extant nursing theories and perspectives. The chapter examines the writings of Susan Gortner, Laura Dzurec, Pamela Reed, Jean Watson, and the journal Nursing Science Quarterly. Nurse authors emphasized the complementary nature of cherry-picked postmodern and post-structural ideas to nursing science but filtered out other ideas that challenge nursing’s disciplinary matrix.
Chapter 5Postmodern and Post-Structural Ideas in American Nursing Texts II
Pages: 20
This chapter describes the role of the journal Advances in Nursing Science in the discourse of American nursing science and shows how this role shaped postmodern and post-structural writings from the late 1980s to 2010. The chapter also describes the work of the “enclave group” of nurse authors who used postmodern and post-structural ideas in rigorous ways, in contrast to proponents of American nursing theory.
Chapter 6Postmodern and Post-structural Ideas in Non-American Nursing Literature
Pages: 18
After providing an overview of postmodern and post-structural non-American nursing literature, this chapter illustrates two prominent examples of the application of Foucault’s ideas generated outside American nursing science and nursing theory. These examples of Foucauldian nursing scholarship by Carl May and Sioban Nelson draw on continental philosophical influences in the context of rigorous research traditions in sociology and history. These authors problematized a widely accepted holistic ideal as a superior ethical nursing stance and as a model of practice that valorizes “knowing the patient” as an egalitarian and self-evident configuration of the nurse–patient relationship. The cases discussed in this chapter opened new vistas for understanding nursing practice and nursing knowledge as socially and historically contingent phenomena.
Chapter 7It's Not About Being Comfortable Bedfellows
Pages: 19
This chapter summarizes the book’s argument that the matrix of American nursing theory has rendered postmodern and post-structural theory unintelligible, while nurse scholars outside of this matrix have produced interesting and compelling research employing these continental (“borrowed”) theories. The chapter describes possible explanations for American nursing theory’s ignorance of and immunity to post-structural and other criticisms and explains the significance of this study for nursing education, research, and practice.